Hearth and Home
by Irish Rose1
Summary: Lois moves back to the farm, will it be happily ever after? Only she and Clark know for sure. 3 of 3.


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"Hey Smallville. Your personal space is about to be reinstated." Lois informed him as she carried a box down the stairs.

"What are you doing? You just moved back in." He frowned in confusion.

"Well now that Lana is living with Chloe, I'm taking her place."

Clark remembered his disappointment at the time, though he never would have admitted it, when Lois left the farm and moved into town.

Lana's apartment above the _Talon_ had become available when she moved in with Chloe at Met U. and Lois had seen it as her chance at independence.

He knew how much she cared about his parents and how much she liked living with them. But no matter how much Mom and Dad kept telling her that she wasn't a burden or a freeloader, two of Lois' favorite words to describe herself, she needed her own space. She needed to stand on her own two feet.

Which was why he thought it was a little ironic that she was once again coming back, coming _home_.

He never really understood why, but the farmhouse never quite felt like a home after Lana moved in. It wasn't that she hadn't tried, but they'd never had the level of comfort together that he'd felt with Lois, longer than he would have cared to admit.

Maybe it was because they were trying too hard to make a home together. Maybe there was still a distrust of each other that neither wanted to address.

But as he helped Lois to carry her boxes upstairs to his room, _their_ room for the time being, he knew that the house was going to be a home again. And he smiled at that fact.

"You know Lois, for an apartment that was furnished, you sure accumulated a lot of junk." He teased as he followed her up the stairs, enjoying the view of her just ahead of him.

"Smallville, are you checking me out?" She ignored his sarcasm with a quick turn of her head and she looked at him, her face flushed.

"What do _you_ think?" He smiled at her and was rather pleased with himself that _his_ wasn't.

It was funny how their roles were reversing in some ways, with Lois' face turning red when he would say something that could be considered mildly suggestive. Clark knew that it was his deep feelings for her and the knowledge of her deep feelings for him that had transformed him into something of a risk taker with her.

For lack of a better way to describe it, her reaction made him feel very male.

"Well just stop that because we're not done unloading the truck yet." She admonished him as she trudged up the stairs.

"Whatever you say." His smile became a grin as he completely ignored her and watched her shapely backside as she continued upstairs.

"Clark." She admonished again because she knew exactly what he was doing and it sounded as though she was trying not to laugh.

"Lois." He couldn't seem to help himself because he was in love. "I take it as one of the privileges of being your boyfriend to be able to watch my girlfriend walk up a flight of stairs."

"So that means, as your girlfriend _I_ have the same privilege." She glanced over her shoulder again with a smile and a raised eyebrow, and this time Clark _did_ flush.

"I'd be offended if you didn't." And he laughed softly as he caught her eye. "I'm just glad you're home."

"So am I." She gave him a short nod of agreement before taking the last few steps to the landing. He followed her down the hall to his room and as he put the box down just inside the door realized that he'd yet to kiss her that morning.

He'd moved to do just that when she'd opened the door to her apartment earlier, but with Chloe just inside on the couch, Lois had given him a barely perceptible shake of her head.

When they'd met up at the farm after loading his truck and her car, she'd explained that while Chloe seemed to be fine with their dating, she didn't seem so fine about Lois moving back to the farm.

"It isn't what she's said; it's what she _hasn't_ said." Lois had sighed as she pulled a box out the back seat of her car, while Clark grabbed a box from the bed of the truck. "I thought she'd be happy because now she has the whole apartment to herself." She'd rolled her eyes. "It was a little awkward sometimes when Jimmy would stay over."

"A little too close for comfort?" He'd commented with a smile and she'd given him a pointed stare. "I know, not funny."

"I'll get you trained yet." She'd balanced the box on her hip and patted his cheek.

"You think so?" He'd felt the need to say.

"I _know_ so." She'd flashed a smile at him before she shifted the box again and walked toward the house. "Come on Clark, we're burning daylight."

"It's barely noon."

"Chop, chop." She'd kept going. "Let's go."

Clark watched her as she set the box she'd been carrying down on the bed. She turned around and looked ready to say something to him, but he didn't want to give her the chance. He took several long steps to reach her and caught her face in his hands to bring her lips to his.

He hadn't kissed her since she was underneath him on the couch the night before, and the memory of that extremely pleasant encounter had put him under the hard spray of a cold shower when his fantasies got the better of him after he'd gone to sleep.

Warm skin, damp lips, her roaming hands that skimmed parts of his body he never thought would and their rapid heartbeats filled his dreams.

He heard her breath of surprise and smiled. She gave him a swift punch in the arm before he felt her arms curl around his neck and she flattened her body against his. He groaned in response and felt _her_ smile.

"It's about time you did that." Lois whispered in his ear just before brushing it with her lips. She sighed softly and Clark had never known before what a contented sigh sounded like, or how much it would mean to him.

"Lois." He held her close for a moment longer. "We need to go downstairs and talk about something."

"Ground rules." She pulled out of his arms before she glanced at him.

"Something like that." Clark took her hand. "Since we're going to share the house, we need to figure out how we're going to do that."

"I know." She agreed with a nod and tugged on his hand. "Let's go. I'd rather talk about this while your mother is in town."

"She loves you, you know." He seemed to feel the need to tell her that. "She used to hope that she and Dad would have a daughter and I always got the sense that it was something she sometimes regretted because they didn't."

"Clark." Her look of sympathy made him smile.

"But after you became such a part of our family, I think it was something she didn't regret as much."

"She told me once that if she'd ever had a daughter, she'd want her to be just like me." Her face flushed at the admission.

"My mom is a smart woman." And he grinned. "But I'm sure glad that you're not my sister."

"So am I." She kissed his cheek, pulled her hand out of his grasp and walked out of the room. He followed behind and as they reached the top of the landing, she stopped. Lois indicated the stairs with a flourish of her hand and smiled. "After you."

He tried to look serious, but wasn't sure if he was pulling it off. "Are you going to check me out?"

"Absolutely." She tried to look just as serious. "Fair is fair."

"That's true, but I think I've got a better idea."

"What's better than my following you down the stairs?" Her eyebrow went up.

"When's the last time you had a piggyback ride?" He raised his eyebrows in question and he was rewarded with another flushed look.

"When I was three." She frowned and he tried not to laugh. "Mom was in labor with Lucy and Daddy was trying to keep me distracted."

"Then I'd say you're overdue, wouldn't you?"

"You can't be serious." Her face became rosier. "I'm hardly three."

"Don't you trust me?" He gave her what Mom had always called his puppy dog look and she rolled her eyes. "I promise that I won't drop you."

"The question _I_ have is, will you put me down when we get there?" She put her hands on her hips.

"There's only one way to find out." He presented his back to her and then felt a decisive slap on the seat of his jeans.

"Nice look there Smallville."

"Lois, did you just?"

"Uh-huh." She told him as he crouched down enough for her to get her arms around his neck and he boosted her up against his back.

"Just checking." He grinned again as he carried her down the stairs and she propped her chin on his shoulder.

"If I'd known how nice this could be, I would have let you do it sooner." Her voice was soft in his ear and he let out his own sigh of contentment and she seemed to understand. "I know."

"We still need to finish unloading the truck when we're done talking." He reminded her and felt her nod.

"There isn't much left. And what I can't unpack, your mom said I could store in the barn."

"You want me to take care of that for you?" He offered as they reached the bottom of the stairs and he set her down.

"If you wouldn't mind."

"A little super speed and I'll have it done in no time." He shrugged before Lois slipped her hand into his. "I'm glad that you know about that."

"I'm glad you felt that you could tell me." She squeezed his fingers. "Let's go sit out on the swing, it's too nice to be in here."

He pushed open the screen door with his free hand and waited for her to walk out ahead of him. It thumped closed behind him as they settled on the swing and he took a deep breath and let it out.

Clark would be the first to admit how the solitude of the farm had gotten to him and it was why he'd spent so much time at the _Planet_ with Chloe. But with Lois sitting beside him, her fingers entwined trustingly in his, he began to appreciate the quiet again because he had someone to share it with.

_Scratch that_. Not just someone, but with Lois.

"So is it just me, or do we agree that some ground rules need to be set if I'm going to live here?" She jumped into the breech.

"That's why I thought we should talk about it now, before Mom went back to Washington." Clark nodded in agreement. "We've decided that we're not ready for anything more than what we have now."

"You mean sleeping together." Her answer was characteristically blunt.

"That's what I mean." He confirmed it. "I just don't want to make the same mistakes I made with Lana because you mean so much more to me than she did."

Her answer to that was to rest her cheek against his shoulder. "I'll bet you never thought you'd hear yourself say that, about _any_ girl."

_"Look, sometimes you got to tuck your feelings away until it's the right time." She'd advised him. "Like stuffing dollars into a piggy bank for a bike you can't quite afford."_

_"Except I can't quite imagine there is_ _anyone else out there." He'd been doubtful to say the least._

_"Well, you never know Clark. Maybe when you finally crack open that piggy bank, you'll find that all this time you haven't been saving for a bike, you've really been saving for a Harley."_

Clark dropped a kiss in her hair and smiled as he remembered that long ago conversation. "You're my Harley, Lois."

She sat up and looked at him, confused. "I'm your _what_?"

"When things between Lana and I weren't going well." He began.

"When _were_ they?" She interjected with a frown.

"Lois." He frowned back.

"Sorry, it's none of my business." She put her free hand up in a gesture of surrender, but Clark disagreed with a shake of his head.

"It _is_ your business because you were a part of all that when you were being my friend. And now that you're my girlfriend, I don't want to keep any of that from you."

"Even if I don't want to know?" She glanced at him. "If it's all the same to you, I'd really rather not know the intimate details of your relationship with her."

__

Be careful, Clark.

He grasped her hand tightly and looked into her eyes. "Does it still bother you that I slept with her?"

"It shouldn't, but it does." She admitted as her head went down. "I know you love me and I know that we've decided to put off anything, more, between us." She was struggling to find the words. "But it doesn't mean that I'm not envious that she had a part of you that I haven't."

"Honey, you have my heart." He tried to reassure her. "Totally and completely, Lana never did."

"I know that." She put her cheek back on his shoulder and sighed before she changed the subject. _Just go with it. _"So what are we supposed to do about our living arrangements?"

"I hope you don't mind, but I talked to Mom about that and she came up with an idea."

"Let's hear it."

"It won't really be an issue until I'm back upstairs, but she was thinking that when it's time to go to bed, one of us should go up first. It doesn't matter to me which one of us it is, but her idea was that we give the other time to get ready and the signal that it's all right to go up is when your door or mine is closed.

"That way we have the privacy we need, and don't put ourselves in a situation that could make things awkward." He explained.

"That's a good idea." She agreed. "I guess that was the one thing she was really concerned about."

"She trusts us Lois and she knows how we feel about _that_. But you _are_ a beautiful woman who's going to be back under the same roof with me."

"And she's worried that her son won't be able to keep his hands off his housemate." She laughed softly.

"More like his housemate won't be able to keep her hands off her son." He shot back with a grin before he felt his mood sober. "We both know that this situation is a lot different from the last two times you lived here and Mom knows that too. She just wants us to think about that and be aware of it."

"Because we're not strictly housemates." She offered.

"Exactly."

"I think it's a good idea." She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and he smiled. "Now, would you mind explaining to me what you meant about my being your _Harley_?"

"You must have gotten tipsy on that rum cake you made for my birthday." Clark teased her and got a glare for his trouble. "Because you can't remember such an important conversation."

"Explain Smallville, now."

"Okay Lois. It's like this."

oooooo

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"Hi Lo."

Lois smiled at the voice of her cousin coming through her cell. "Hi Chlo."

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"I just thought I'd call and see if you were settled in."

She shook her head with a smile. "I can't unpack too much until Mrs. Kent goes back to Washington. So I'm sharing Smallville's room with him, sort of."

Chloe laughed and Lois couldn't help but wonder the last time she heard it. _"I don't think he minds." _And she sighed. _"I just wanted to say that I was sorry for not being more supportive of your moving out. I know we haven't seen a lot of each other in a long time, but it was nice knowing that you were here. I'm going to miss you."_

"I'm not that far away cuz. Besides, it was time to turn that place over to you anyway. You were spending more time there than _I_ was. And it'll make things a lot less awkward."

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"He likes you Lois and wouldn't do anything to embarrass you."

"I know." She nodded, even though Chloe couldn't see. "But I've never been good at being a third wheel and it was starting to feel that way."

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"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. The truth is, this is where I've always felt most at home."

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"Are you happy?"

"Yea." And it surprised Lois a little to realize that she really was. _Totally and completely._

"Lois, it's time for dinner." She heard Mrs. Kent call her from downstairs.

"Listen Chlo; I need to hang up now. But I'll call you later."

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"Sure thing Lo. Say hi for me."

"I will." She promised as they said goodbye and she disconnected the call.

She put her cell phone down on Clark's nightstand and walked out of the bedroom, taking the stairs down to the kitchen. "Chloe says to say hi."

"Well please tell her hello back the next time you talk to her." Mrs. Kent requested as she pulled a roasting pan out of the oven. "She needs to come out for dinner before I leave."

"I'll tell her that."

"So how does she like having the whole apartment to herself?" Clark asked as he stood at the dining room table, tossing the salad.

"I think it's going to take her some getting used to." Lois picked up the utensils from the island and walked to the dining room, laying out the place settings.

"It's hard living by yourself when you're used to having people around." Clark's mother commented as she carried the dinner plates to the table and turned back for the kitchen.

"That's true." Clark gave Lois a pointed look and then smiled. "So it's always nice when there's someone else around."

"I won't argue with that." She agreed.

"Not _that_, but I'm sure you'll find something." He ducked his head as he continued to toss and if Lois didn't know better, he was trying not to laugh.

"You keep that up Smallville and you'll be moving me back to the _Talon_ tonight." She warned him as she set the plates around the table.

"Tell me that after you've had Mom's roast chicken with her specially seasoned mashed potatoes and baby carrots."

"And her special gravy?" She might have to rethink that threat.

"Just the way you like it." Mrs. Kent commented as she walked in from the kitchen, holding a platter with the roast chicken. "So are you staying?"

"If you're going to teach me how to cook all this, then I guess I have to." She shrugged.

"Just make sure the number for Smallville Medical Center is by the phone. " Clark grinned as he placed the salad bowl in the middle of the table.

"I thought you were supposed to be invulnerable." Lois narrowed her eyes at him.

"I _am_. But with the way _you_ cook, that'll probably change." He laughed, which got a frown from his mother, but it only made him laugh all the more as he walked to the kitchen to get the bowl of potatoes from the back of the stove and carry them back to the table.

"You take that back." _Don't laugh Lois._

"I will after you learn how to cook." He didn't back down and she had to admit that she was proud of him. He needed to learn to stand up for himself more often.

"Then I guess I'll _have_ to so you will."

"Haven't we had this conversation before?" Mrs. Kent laughed as she sat down and Lois and Clark followed. "I seem to remember that the loser of a bet that Lois could or could not learn to cook would pay for a meal at O'Brien's. Am I right?"

"We did." He smiled at Lois. "Although Lois seems to have forgotten about that."

"I haven't forgotten Clark, I was ignoring it. But now I guess I can't."

"Lois if it makes you feel any better, I wasn't that handy in the kitchen when Jonathan and I got married." Mrs. Kent admitted with a bashful shrug of her shoulders. "It was Jonathan's mother who made me the cook I am now and I've always been so grateful that she had the patience to teach me."

"So if you can learn, so can I?" Lois was dubious.

"Honey, you learned to love my son. And if you could learn to do that, anything is possible." She smiled. "Don't you think?"

"Yea, Lois. Don't you think?" Clark was still smiling at her. _Smart-ass._

"Well as long as the number for the hospital is by the phone." She sighed in resignation. "Now that I live here, I don't have any more excuses."

"I'm sure you'll think of something." He commented as he ducked his head again as he speared a forkful of potatoes. _He was laughing!_

"Let's see how invulnerable you are when I refuse to kiss you for another twenty-four hours." She challenged him and when he looked up, had an insufferably smug look on his face.

"That goes both ways Lois, don't forget that." He wasn't fazed. "By refusing to let me kiss you, that means you don't get to kiss me either."

__

She hated it when he was right.

"All right Clark, that's enough." Mrs. Kent shook her head with a soft smile and looked at Lois. "And no more out of you either; dinner's getting cold."

She watched as Clark reached over and took his mother's hand, but kept his gaze on her. "I love you Lois, even if you can't cook."

"I love you too, Clark." She couldn't resist and smiled at him. "So when I learn to cook, you'll love me more?"

"Only if you don't put me in the hospital."

"Keep talking like that and I just might." She cocked her eyebrow at him.

"Lois." Clark's mother sighed and shook her head.

"I'd like to see you try."

"Clark." She ran a hand across her forehead and pushed her chair away from the table.

"Mom, what are you doing?"

"About to put the two of you over my knee." Lois looked down at her plate trying to hide her amusement because Mrs. Kent was trying so hard to be serious and wasn't quite managing.

"All right, Smallville. Let's call a truce so your mother can eat in peace." She looked up at him and held her hand out across the table, ready to shake on it.

"Truce." He took her hand, but instead of shaking it, he kissed her fingers. "That's the best I can do."

"I'll take it." She withdrew her hand, her face warm.

"I knew you would." He smiled at her and she smiled back.

__

It was nice to finally be home.


End file.
